luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 31, 2025

No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

Blues at Avalanche, Dec 31, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Blues 6–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 19:00 left): Valeri Nichushkin scored on a wrist shot from 18 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final

St. Louis Blues 1
Colorado Avalanche 6

December 31, 2025 · Ball Arena

Luck index +26 Avalanche lucky · −26 Blues

Each team’s own shots from this game, resampled into new games 4,000 times, each a goal at its chance, with the power plays the penalties gave and the pulled goalie at the end: with the way both teams actually played, how often does this performance win? How the replay works

Ten replays. Blues win 3, Avalanche win 7.

  1. 1 STL 5 COL 2
  2. 2 STL 2 COL 1
  3. 3 STL 2 COL 1
  4. 4 STL 3 COL 4
  5. 5 STL 3 COL 4
  6. 6 STL 2 COL 4
  7. 7 STL 1 COL 4
  8. 8 STL 2 COL 5
  9. 9 STL 1 COL 5
  10. 10 STL 2 COL 7

Three other ways to ask

Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.

No closing line for this game.

Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.

Every shot redrawn at its chance, overtime and the shootout replayed as near coin flips; the shots themselves and every call fixed. The narrowest view of luck.

How 4,000.2 replays ended

Blues win 26% of them, Avalanche 74%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 5.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blues by 3+4.7%
Blues by 24.6%
Blues by 117.1%
Avalanche by 119.4%
Avalanche by 212.6%
Avalanche by 3+41.5%

Where the luck was

What the luck was worth

Every lucky and unlucky play, weighted by the moment it happened: its swing in win probability, added up by kind. A post hit in a blowout counts for nothing; the same post with a minute left in a tie game can be most of a win.

Swings add up across a game, so in one that went back and forth they can pass 100%. On the scoreboard the same luck was worth +2.4 goals to the Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 5, without the luck Avalanche by 2.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blues2111.47−0.47
Avalanche5563.22+2.78

Regulation with both goalies in. Expected goals: our model of each shot’s chance from where and how it was taken (distance, angle, shot type, rebound, rush, strength), adjusted for the shooter’s and the goalie’s records. A team above expected finished better or met a weaker night in goal; 75% of the gap counts as luck (why that share).

Calls

Every penalty that put a team on the power play, and every goal taken off the board on review, with what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment. Calls don’t count toward luck by default: who draws penalties repeats from game to game like a skill (how calls are valued). Switch them on below.

WhenCallWin probability for
P2 11:44 Tripping on the Blues (Jake Neighbours): 2 minutes on the power play 0% COL
P2 8:53 Tripping on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power play 0% STL
P2 5:10 High sticking on the Avalanche (Parker Kelly): 2 minutes on the power play 0% STL
P2 4:28 Interference on the Blues (Justin Faulk): 2 minutes on the power play 0% COL
P2 0:09 Tripping on the Blues (Jake Neighbours): 2 minutes on the power play 0% COL
P3 13:08 Tripping on the Avalanche (Zakhar Bardakov): 2 minutes on the power play 0% STL

When it happened

Avalanche’ chance of winning

Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

Our in-game win probability: the score and the time left, starting from the betting line (or the home edge alone when there is none), with goals at the league’s rates for the score. Overtime is drawn at a fixed width. Shaded above the middle while the Avalanche were ahead in it, below while the Blues were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:02 Valeri Nichushkin’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +3% STL –
2 P1 19:00 Valeri Nichushkin scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% COL –
3 P1 16:47 Nathan MacKinnon scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 15% chance +11% COL –
4 P1 16:34 Valeri Nichushkin scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 23% chance +7% COL –
5 P1 15:21 Nathan MacKinnon scored on a slap shot from 35 feetShooting · 7% chance +5% COL –
6 P1 8:50 Jimmy Snuggerud’s snap shot from 23 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +1% COL –
7 P1 6:31 Pavel Buchnevich missed the net with a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 18% chance +1% COL –
8 P2 10:19 Brock Nelson scored on a slap shot from 33 feetShooting · 11% chance +1% COL –

Adjust the assumptions

Think finishing is more skill than we do, or that the calls were luck? Change it and the coin-flip replay reruns in your browser.

Only coin-flips re-rolled

Blues 3% · Avalanche 97%

Final margin
Avalanche by 5
Luck in goals
2.4 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 2.6
Replay with same day's form
Blues 26% · Avalanche 74% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts
Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a goal becomes a save, a post goes in, a penalty goes the other way.

About these numbers

Play-by-play from the NHL via fastRhockey; expected goals, in-game win probability and the replays are our own models, fitted on every game since 2018-19 (methodology and validation). Blocked shots aren’t replayed (their location is the block’s, not the shot’s). No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

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